A hate letter to I-75: Why do your orange barrels steal away so much of my life?

I’m going to react to my own column right up front so you don’t have to bother later on.

1) Yes, while construction on I-75 north and south is like the movie “The NeverEnding Story,” it’s really gosh darned wonderful that it’s taking place. Don’t forget: A little inconvenience now will mean lots and lots of convenience later!

2) If you weren’t such an impatient, self-centered SOURPUSS, you’d realize that road construction isn’t just targeting YOU, Andy, and besides have you ever thought about taking ANOTHER ROUTE? Have you? Boy, I’d hate to be your wife. How does she stand it?

3) Liberals like you are to blame for all the road and bridge work that’s mucking everything up! This is your government bailout at work, you clown! The day is coming when we finally come to our senses and lock all you left of center socialists in a gulag and throw away the key! (Columnist’s note: This last one is darned near verbatim to messages I get every day, not that we’re an angry country these days or anything. I think we need Xanax in the water supply)

So, reactions complete, let’s begin the column:

I can’t stand I-75. From end to end in Michigan – from the Ohio border to the Soo – it’s a crowded, rutted, time-sucking nightmare.

How this is possible is next to impossible.

First, for decades now Michigan’s population has been shrinking faster than Bruce Jenner’s nose (watch “Keeping Up With the Kardashians and you’ll see what I mean – holy moley, Bruce, how do you breathe through that thing?).

So there should be plenty of room on the roads, right?

And yet every year it gets worse. It doesn’t matter what stretch you’re on. Where it’s two lanes, it should be three. Where it’s three lanes, it should be four. Where it’s four lanes, it should be 12.

Just for kicks, I propose we build a 100-lane stretch – just to see if it’s possible to drive for more than 10 minutes without encountering a sea of red tail-lights.

The answer, by the way, will be no. Because the second the 100-lane was complete the Michigan Department of Transportation would start putting up orange barrels – not because the road would need repairs (it usually takes three or four months for that to happen) but because, well, I don’t really know why but I have two theories:

1) They hate us.

2) They really, really hate us.

Why, I don’t know. But if you think that’s a little paranoid, then answer me this: Why do the roads in Michigan all stink when they’re constantly under repair? Hmm?

I’d like to enter into evidence the stretch of I-75 between Clio and Standish, which has never once in the 20 years I’ve been driving it to and from weekends up north – including last week, which is what prompted this whine-fest - been free of orange barrels.

I’m not sure how that’s possible. You’d think they’d have to finish working on it someday, if only for a few hours. By accident.

But it never happens. That tells me there’s something larger at work, and naturally I have a theory.

See, I think long ago that someone in the government purchasing department decided to get a membership at Sam’s Club or Costco.

Do you remember what your first time was like?

“Ohmygosh, if I buy 6,000 rolls of toilet paper, that lowers my average cost per roll down to – hey, honey, it’s basically free!”

That’s what I think happened. The government bought so many orange barrels that they ran out of room to store them. Then someone said, “Hey, we’ve got all these roads. Why not store them out there?”

This would explain two things: 1) Why there are seldom any workers or equipment in orange barrel zones, and 2) Why they block off five miles of road before and after actual construction, even if they’re just filling a pothole.

Again, my theory may sound a little paranoid. But in my defense, that’s what you get when you write a column following a five-hour trip from up north that should have taken three.